


the kids aren't okay

by goblinhimbo



Series: Ranboo Centric Stories [5]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Mentioned Toby Smith | Tubbo, Mentioned TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Panic Attacks, Parent Sam | Awesamdude, Protective Sam | Awesamdude, Ranboo Has Panic Attacks (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), awesamdad, those are my tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29165301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblinhimbo/pseuds/goblinhimbo
Summary: Despite everything, despite his duties as the warden and his bubbling frustration with having been tricked somehow, caught unaware, Sam’s first instinct was to help. If he saw someone hurting, he would always want to reach out, to fix it somehow.Aka Sam cannot see a single sad child without asking "Is anyone going to adopt this child?" and not waiting for an answer.
Relationships: Ranboo & Sam | Awesamdude
Series: Ranboo Centric Stories [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121798
Comments: 16
Kudos: 1038





	the kids aren't okay

**Author's Note:**

> so that all, uh, happened. as soon as i saw the exchange between Ranboo and Sam I rushed to write something for it, so I wrote all of this today, so sorry if its bad!

Sam was angry. 

Anger wasn’t an emotion Sam allowed himself too often. As a half creeper, anger was dangerous. He could feel the pit in his stomach grow heated, sizzling and threatening to explode at the slightest provocation. Anger was dangerous, so Sam does everything he can to avoid it when he can. 

This time, it was unavoidable. 

Being the warden was something Sam took seriously. He refused to show any kind of kindness or weakness as the warden, refused to show any cracks. And even still, somehow, this child managed to alter his contracts, lied about having been to the prison, and is now refusing to explain what he is doing.

“Sam.”

“What.” God, he just wanted this whole thing to be over. Ranboo wouldn’t explain anything, there was no point to continuing this conversation. He needed to go check on the prisoner, he needed to read over every contract anyone signed, he needed to check the defences, he needed-

“I need you to not let me into the prison. 

“I’m not going to let you in already, Ranboo, what do you mean you need me to not let you in? Obviously I’m not going to let you in! Look at what you’re doing! I mean you, you-”

“Yep, yep,” he interrupted him. Sam took a deep breath, trying to not let his anger consume him. “Continue to do that. Okay, don’t let me into the prison.” 

“I will, okay, that’s my plan.” With the anger finally settling down slightly, Sam began to feel concerned. Ranboo’s voice sounded… not right. Thick with emotion, _pleading_ . After a brief moment’s consideration, Sam asked, “Are you _okay?”_

Because despite everything, despite his duties as the warden and his bubbling frustration with having been tricked somehow, caught unaware, Sam’s first instinct was to help. If he saw someone hurting, he would always want to reach out, to fix it somehow. And Ranboo’s voice, raw with desperation, was hurting. A child was hurting, right in front of him, and Sam wanted to fix it.

“... No?”

Sam felt his chest tighten. When he asked the question, he was expecting reassurance, even if it was blatantly false. Or even a refusal to answer, or for Ranboo to try to change the subject. He hadn’t expected him to outright admit to not being okay. 

That wasn’t how things worked on this server. Everyone hid their emotions keeping any pain close to their chest. Even when the hard things were talked about, it was done so with a light tone and laughter in their voice, as if none of them knew how to be vulnerable without making a joke out of it. It was why Puffy was making a therapist office, to try and encourage them all to learn how to face what they were feeling without turning it into a joke. 

So to hear the child in front of him admit he wasn’t okay meant something was _wrong_. 

“But-” 

“Is there something I can do?” Sam cut him off. He didn’t want to hear this child tell him ‘but it's okay’ or ‘but I can deal with it’, or any other worthless reassurance. He didn’t want to brush past it, he wanted to make it better. 

“No.” This time when Ranboo said no, it was without hesitation. As if he knew for a fact that nothing could be done to make it better, and there was no point in trying to hide it. “No, it's uhm, it's nothing that I can tell. You.”

There were two ways Sam could go about this, now. He could say okay, go back to the prison, begin the endless list of chores to be done. That was what he should do, as the warden. That was his job, it was the correct thing to do in this situation. He knew that. Or, he could push. Ranboo sounded sure that there was nothing Sam could do, but there was a slight wavering there. Underneath the self assuredness of his words, there was still a lingering desperation. 

If there was one thing Sam knew for certain about the server they all reluctantly called home, it was that the children were forced to grow up too fast. Sam had been lucky, he had shown up as an adult who already knew who he was. Others, like Tommy and Tubbo, hadn’t been so lucky. They were used by the adults around them, pushed into positions of power that they hadn’t been ready for. 

Sam had been foolish enough to think Ranboo had been spared from that, having arrived after the major wars had been passed. And maybe he was, for the most part. But something he hadn’t considered was that while the conflicts may be over, the mentalities that had hurt the children in the first place hadn’t. 

Most of the adults around them seemed blind to the fact that the children were children in the first place. They were content to use and discard them as they pleased, without any regard to what trauma that caused. And even those that didn’t actively take place in doing that turned a blind eye, thinking it wasn’t their responsibility. Even Sam had done so. He refused to continue. 

“Ranboo,” he started, “I want to help. But I can’t do that if I don’t know what’s going on.”

The hybrid in front of his shook his head, hugging himself. “I can’t. I can’t tell you.”

Taking a deep, calming breath, Sam asked, “Okay, why can’t you tell me? Let’s start there.”

“You’ll, you’ll lock me up. You’ll put me in there with _him_ , I can’t, I can’t be locked up, please-” Sam watched with wide eyes as Ranboo fell to his knees suddenly, gasping for breath. He hadn’t even realized how panicked he had been getting.

Sam rushed forward, throwing caution to the wind. He had been hoping to keep at least some of the Warden persona, enough to seem stern and hopefully make Ranboo more willing to answer his questions, but at the sight of the panicking boy all of that had been pushed aside.

Carefully kneeling in front of Ranboo, Sam gentled his voice and expression before saying, “It’s okay, you’re okay, I won’t lock you up. Can you breathe with me, Ranboo?”

Ranboo shook his head desperately, eyes wide. “Can’t, I can’t breathe, please.”

“You can, you just need to slow down. I’ll guide you, okay? In for four seconds, hold for four seconds, out for four seconds, hold for four seconds. I’ll count for you, alright?”

Sam waited for Ranboo to nod in agreement before starting. “Okay, In, one, two, three four. Hold, one, two, three, hour.” He continued guiding him through the exercise, keeping his voice gently and steady. A part of him wanted to panic as well at how quickly everything escalated, but there would be time for that later. For now, he had to focus on calming down Ranboo.

They continued to sit there together, going through the exercise, for around five minutes. Sam’s thighs and knees burned from the position that he had hastily thrown himself into, but he ignored it. 

When Ranboo’s breathing had finally fully evened out, Sam stopped counting. “Feeling better?” Receiving a nod in response, Sam let out a sigh. “Alright, good.”

“I’m sorry.” Ranboo muttered. Sam’s chest ached at the hoarseness in his voice. 

“It’s okay. Panic attacks just happen, no need to apologize for them.”

Ranboo shook his head and looked down. “Not for that. Well, uh, for that too, but. I’m sorry for not telling you.”

Sam smiled sadly and said, “You’re still not going to tell me, are you?”

“I can’t. I want to, I don’t want to have to deal with this alone anymore, but I can’t tell you. I can’t” 

“Ranboo.” Sam took a deep breath, willing himself to not become upset. Not the time. “I want to help you, but unless you tell me what is happening I can’t do anything. The only reason why I would lock you up is if you had been knowingly and willingly helping the prisoner escape, or if you had been purposefully hurting others in the server. Have you been doing either of those things.”

He seemed to take a moment to think before slowly shaking his head in response. Sam felt an anxiety he didn’t even fully realize he had clam, and he smiled and replied, “See? Then you have nothing to fear by telling me.”

“Why are you being so nice?”

Sam furrowed his brows, asking, “What do you mean?”

“You are the warden of the prison. You take that seriously, I’ve heard about it from Tommy. Why are you being so lax with me?”

That is… a good question, honestly. Sam knows the answer, he knows that it’s because Ranboo is just a kid, one who he just helped out of a panic attack. There was no way that Sam could be harsh with the kid without feeling like the worst of monsters, without feeling like he had failed his duty to protect the children of the server. He also knew that saying that would come out all wrong, condescending and unkind. 

“My job is to keep the people of this word safe. You are one of those people. As long as you aren’t willingly hurting the others, then locking you up would be an injustice.” Not entirely untrue. 

Ranboo scrunched his face up in thought, and despite the situation, Sam couldn’t help but feeling a soft fondness for the boy. It was so easy to forget his age with how tall he was, with how maturely he spoke, with the suit he was never seen out of. 

Eventually, Ranboo nodded. “I guess that makes sense.” 

Sam smiled encouragingly, before adjusting his position to get more comfortable. “Go on then.” he prompted.

“Wait, right now? Here?”

“No one else is here, and both of our homes are far away.”

There was a few moments of silence as Ranboo followed Sam’s lead, in the end sitting with his arms wrapping around his long legs, his knees nearly touching his forehead. “I… I don’t know how to start. It’s uh, all messed up in my head.”

“That’s okay. We can just sit together until you figure it out.”

Ranboo nodded his head, before he leaned forward to fully rest on his knees and closed his eyes. Sam felt his heart give a painful tug at the sight. All scrunched up like that, he looked so _young_ , so _tired._ Sam hated that he had let another child be hurt without him realizing. He would fix it, he had to fix it. 

After a couple minutes passed of the two of them silently sitting together, Ranboo began to speak. “You know my memory is bad. But, uh, it’s bad in two different ways? The first is obvious, I will do things and eventually they will fade from my memory. The only things that really stick are memories that are emotional. Happy, sad, whatever.”

He paused for a couple moments, collecting his thoughts. “The second, uh, is a bit more complicated? Sometimes, when I’m sleeping or stressed or something, I will do things. And I don’t remember any of it. I just, I wake up in different places where I last was. And I don’t know how I got there.”

“You don’t have any clue what you do?” Sam interrupted. 

Ranboo hunched in on himself, as if trying to take up less space. “I don’t remember what I do. But, uh, a couple months ago, I… I started hearing a voice? I started hearing _Dream’s_ voice.” Sam stiffened. “Only in uh, my panic room? I made it because I wanted a safe place, somewhere I could go to calm down. But, instead, I started hearing him. He, he told me I was a traitor, that I blew up the community house, that I had a _Disc._

Suddenly, Ranboo sat up completely straight, and for the first time the entire conversation, looked Sam in the eyes. “And I did! I had TNT! I had a disk, Sam! Somehow, when I enter that state, I managed to gain Dream’s trust enough for him to give me a Disc! I, I gave him my memory book!”

Sam didn’t know what to say. 

“And, I thought it was over!” Ranboo hunched over his lap, his voice trembling. “He went to prison and I thought that even if I kept sleepwalking, I couldn’t hurt anyone anymore because he was locked up! He couldn’t make me betray anyone! But even with him in prison, it isn’t enough! I visited him, I changed your contracts, what else did I do?” His voice suddenly changed to a whisper as he wrapped his arms around himself. “What else did I do?”

Without another thought, Sam launched himself forward and wrapped his arms around the trembling boy. God, what should he do? Sam doesn’t know how to _help._ “I don’t know,” Sam whispered. It was a response to both the question Ranboo asked, and the one on repeat on Sam’s mind. He just didn’t know. 

“I don’t know what else you’ve done. And I am sorry this is happening. I am so, so sorry.”

Slowly, Ranboo moved his arms out from where they were trapped in between their bodies and wrapped them around Sam. Sam could feel him press his face into Sam’s neck, and Sam felt his heart break a little bit. He was so _young_. 

“Please don’t lock me up, Sam.” Ranboo pleaded, his voice muffled. “Please, please. I know you’re supposed to lock up anyone who might help a prisoner, but Sam, _I don’t want to_ , I don’t want to help him, so please, _please don’t._ ”

Sam wanted to cry. God, he hated this. He hated that this was apparently the third child that Dream had somehow manipulated, he hated that this was the third child this entire world had failed to protect. He hated that he wasn’t _wrong_ , by all means this was enough proof to say that Ranboo was trying to help the prisoner escape. He hated that there were probably more, more incriminating things Ranboo had done that he wouldn’t share. 

For a brief moment, Sam allowed himself to hate the entire world for being so cruel toward his kids, before Sam pushed it away. Time for that later. Time for all that later.   
  
“I don’t care.” Sam said, and it was a declaration. It was him deciding protecting his newly acquired children was more important than anything else, more important than his official duties as the warden. They would come before anything. “I don’t care what I should do, Ranboo.”

He pulled away from their embrace to look Ranboo in the eyes. At the pure panic in them, Sam quickly realized how what he said sounded, and corrected, “No no, do not be afraid. I don’t care about what I am supposed to do, Ranboo. I will not lock you up, I promised, I promise. You are safe. I will keep you safe. 

Ranboo’s face crumpled in relief and he finally began to cry. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..”

Sam slowly moved to hug the boy again, cradling him carefully as he sobbed. He carefully kissed the top of the kid’s head, trying to put all of his thoughts in that single action. _You are safe now. I will not allow anyone else to hurt you. I promise._

Even though Sam knew there was no way he could actually say all that all now, not in a way that would make Ranboo believe him, Sam knew they were true. Nothing would ever touch his kids again. Not without losing all their lives.


End file.
